DEATH FROM HEMORRHAGIC ENCEPHALITIS FOLLOWING TREATMENT WITH SULPHARSPHENAMINE: REPORT OF TWO CASES IN SYPHILITIC INFANTS

Death from hemorrhagic encephalitis caused by the arsphenamines has been noted from the earliest years of the use of these drugs. 1 Globus and Ginsburg 2 in 1933 were able to list sixty cases, clinically and pathologically well authenticated, the great majority of which were reported from European clinics. To this number they added fourteen other clinically typical cases which lacked pathologic confirmation. There are reports of three nonfatal cases since then. 3 The two cases reported here are the first to be described in infants. REPORT OF CASES Case1.—S. F., a 5 month old girl, was brought to the Stanford University Hospital on Sept. 10, 1929, because she had been having convulsions of increasing frequency and severity for twelve hours before admission. Three and one-half months previously snuffles, syphilids and a strongly positive Wassermann reaction of the blood had been discovered. At that time the spinal fluid, which